Melba Toast Day

Easter-- 8 French Quarter Festival -- 15 Jazz Festival-- 33

Today is Melba Toast Day. That may seem like a strange thing to celebrate here in New Orleans, but we really ought to, because this has long been the World Capital of melba toast, because of the presence here of the Turnbull Baking Company. For decades it made almost all the Melba toast for almost every big-name brand. It shut down for a time in 1910, causing a countrywide shortage of melba toast. It came back but didn't last.Melba toast, as well as the dessert peach Melba, is named after Dame Nellie Melba, the superstar opera singer of the late 1800s and early 1900s. She ate dried, thin toast whenever she was "ill" (read: needed to take a few pounds off her Rubenesque body). She supposedly revealed the secret of making the toast on this day in 1901.

Melba, Mississippi is twenty-five miles west of Hattiesburg, in mixed woodlands and open fields. This is dairy cattle and horse country. A few farmhouses are nearby, and perhaps some of them have a spare packet of melba toast to share. A better idea would be to head back in the direction of Hattiesburg on MS 42 into the small town Sumrall. There, six miles away, is Murphy's Catfish House.

gianduia, gianduja, [jahn-DOO-yah], Italian--n.A flavor of gelato with an intense chocolate flavor with the addition of hazelnut paste or powder. It's one of many instances in Europe of the affinity chocolate and hazelnuts have for one another. This version seems to have come from Turin, which especially likes the flavor blend. Gianduia became popular among chefs when the first decade of the twenty-first century came to a close.

Al Copeland died today in 2008. He was the creator of Popeyes Fried Chicken, which began in New Orleans and spread nationwide. He went on to open Copeland's, a chain of Creole-Cajun bistros, in 1985. Copeland was famous not only for his restaurants but also for his large-living personal style. He was big into motorboat racing, among other things. He was celebrated for having an acute palate. Ironically, he died of a disease of the salivary glands.

Fannie Farmer was born today in 1857. The cookbook she published in 1896--which is still being revised and published--contained a major innovation without which cookbooks would not be nearly as useful. She was the first to specify exact amounts of ingredients in her recipes, and precise timings and temperatures. Her cookbook assumed nothing of the reader, and so it became a great help to people whose mothers were not good cooks. Its original name was The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, but now, well over four million copies later, it's known as the Fannie Farmer Cookbook.

Astronaut John Young had a corned beef sandwich for lunch today in 1965--in space. He was the first person to do so. On rye, with mustard and kosher pickles. He smuggled the thing on board, an act which got him in hot water with NASA.

Even though corned beef appears to contain its own dental floss, all dislodging of it from between teeth must be accomplished out of view of other people.

Today in 1896, the New York legislature passed the Raines Law. It prohibited sales of alcoholic beverages on Sunday, except in hotels. You could get a drink in a hotel, but only if you were a registered guest having a meal, or having the drinks served in your room. Intention: to shut down saloons on the one day that working stiffs might be able to enjoy them. Effect: a rise in adultery.

The Dixie Cup--made of paper coated with wax to make it waterproof--was introduced today in 1912. The inventor was Lawrence Luellen, who originally called it the "Health Cup." His aim was to improve sanitation, not convenience. That cleared the way for the go cup used by New Orleans bars and their customers. Go cups are almost unique to New Orleans; in other places, where laws disallow drinking in public, the idea of taking a beer or cocktail with you after leaving the bar is anathema.The Warren Glass Company received a patent today in 1880 for its milk bottle. It wasn't the first bottle for milk delivery, but it was the one whose shape set the standard. Even now, when glass milk bottles are rare, a Warren bottle still would be identified by most people as a bottle for milk.

The song Yes, We Have No Bananas was published by its writers, Frank Silver and Irving Conn, today in 1923.

Slightly underripe bananas, sliced end to end and then across to give four pieces, can be browned in butter and served as a starchy vegetable next to almost anything.

Francis Berry, Shakespearean scholar and poet, was born today in 1915. . . Architectural engraver Muirhead Bone was born today in 1876. (Funny. . . you don't see many people with that name anymore.)

"To the old saying that man built the house but woman made it a home might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation."--Emily Post.

"Man is a genius when he is dreaming."--Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film director, born today in 1910.